Velvet Revolution

Velvet Revolution
Clockwise, from top: A destroyed statue of Žygimantas Ramanauskas, civilians cheering a tank advancing on the Prezidentūra, Maksymas Užugiris attending a rally, protesters marching in Kalnaspilis.
Date December 21, 1951 - January 8, 1952 (2 weeks and 4 days) Location Aucuria Result  • Collapse of the Grey Regime  • Restoration of democracy in Aucuria  • End of state of emergency  • Release of political prisoners  • Dissolution of the Democratic-Republican Party  • Autonomy extended to Atlia  • Multiple Grey Regime leaders tried and jailed
Belligerents
Grey Regime  • Aucurian Defense League  • Democratic-Republican Party Various police forces	Aucurian revolutionaries  • Alliance for Freedom  • Aucurian Democratic Front Atlian nationalists  • Atlian Freedom Front  • New Revolutionary Society Aucurian Armed Forces (after January 6)
Commanders and leaders
Aleirikas Kalvaitis Ervinas Antanavičius Gelertas Laurynavičius Aivaras Briedis Jonas Vilhelmaitys Rimantas Jovaiša Česlavas Prunskienas Jokūbas Burokėvičius	Maksymas Užugiris Euzebijos Šaulytis Izmaēlis Venclova Anatolijus Jakubėnas Liuteras Saugardis Mustafa Alimoğlu Hüseyin Çevik Seyyit Haliloğlu Juozapas Juknevičius Blēzas Pilypaitis Vykintas Karijaulis
Strength
~6,500 active personnel ~3,200 reserve personnel Unknown number of loyalists	135,000+ protesters 45,000+ protesters ~7,100 active personnel ~3,800 reserve personnel
Casualties and losses
97 killed 137 injured	318 killed 296 killed 36 killed 106 injured
2,327 civilians wounded 94 bystanders killed in riots in Atlia

The Velvet Revolution (Aucurian: Aksominė Revoliūcija, Atlian: Kadife Ihtilal) was a campaign of civil resistance, civil disobedience, and eventually open revolt against the ruling Grey Regime in Aucuria that took place between December 21, 1951 and January 8, 1952. Provoked by public anger about political repression, corruption, factionalism within the government, tension between the Aucurian Armed Forces and Aucurian Defense League, and severe economic stagnation, the revolt ultimately resulted in the overthrow of the Grey Regime, the dissolution of the Democratic-Republican Party, and the reestablishment of democratic governance within Aucuria.

The first protests began on the evening of December 21, organized clandestinely by dissident and student groups in the cities of Kalnaspilis, Laižuotas, Katniava, and Vištytopolė; these initial protests were timed to take advantage of the Aucurian holidays of Kūčios and Kalėdos, whose celebrations traditionally included public gatherings. In spite of attempts by the ruling Grey Regime to suppress news of the events, protests spread rapidly to several other cities and towns, including many in the restive minority region of Atlia, where they were spearheaded by Atlian separatists. The number of individuals and groups involved in the protest swelled amidst a general strike, and by December 26, even groups such as the state-approved Confederation of Labor Unions were involved. The protests in Atlia turned into riots on December 29, with rioters seizing control of some Atlian cities; the Aucurian Defense League, a paramilitary force operated by the regime commonly known as the Greyshirts, attempted to suppress the riots in Atlia and contain the protests elsewhere, but these efforts were unsuccessful, and an uneasy stalemate had developed both in Atlia and Aucuria proper by January 2. During this period, Atlian leaders such as Mustafa Alimoğlu, Hüseyin Çevik, and Seyyit Haliloğlu declared an independent Atlian state in Şehiray.

The stalemate between protesters and the regime was broken on January 6, when the ruling regime, fearing that the protesters would use the day's status as a holiday commemorating the Aucurian Revolution to launch a new wave of protests, attempted to end the protests by force; this provoked bloody clashes between protesters and the Greyshirts in which large numbers of people were killed. Amidst the chaos, however, the Aucurian Armed Forces- who had been variably hostile towards the Greyshirts for several years amidst a rift within the regime- launched a military coup against the government, capturing President Aleirikas Kalvaitis and installing General Juozapas Juknevičius as interim president. Protests demanding the reinstatement of a democratic government continued, however, and Juknevičius ultimately handed power over to a civilian interim government led by Maksymas Užugiris, Euzebijos Šaulytis, Izmaēlis Venclova, Liuteras Saugardis, and other leading dissidents. This interim government successfully reached an agreement with Atlian leaders whereby Atlia would remain in Aucuria in exchange for substantial autonomy, and oversaw a return to democracy in Aucuria, with multiparty elections being held in April 1952. In the months following the revolution, the Greyshirts and Democratic-Republican Party were dissolved, and several leading members of the Grey Regime were tried, jailed, and sometimes executed.

Though commonly known as the Velvet Revolution due to a remark by Maksymas Užugiris, the revolution was in fact marred by violence, particularly in its final days; around 840 people, mostly protesters, were killed during the upheaval. In spite of this, however, protest leaders were successfully able to end the rule of the Grey Regime, and restore Aucuria's democratic system of governance, which remains in place until the present day. The Velvet Revolution also marks the most recent, and thus far last, major insurgency in Atlia against Aucurian rule; the Kelbecir Agreement, reached by leading Aucurian and Atlian figures after the revolution, is considered a watershed moment by Atlians, as it saw the end of Atlian disenfranchisement by Aucurian authorities and the extension of equal rights and democratic governance to Atlia. Historians and political analysts also claim the conflict inspired a resurgence in republican and egalitarian sentiments in Aucuria; this upsurge resulted in the foundation of several groups aimed at preserving democracy and human rights in Aucuria or promoting said ideas abroad; many of these groups, including the Barauskas Foundation, Sergėtojai International, and the Tamkevičius Organization, remain in operation today.

Prelude

Before the Grey Putsch

Main articles: Aucurian Revolution and Atlian Rebellion

An engraving depicting the 1792 Battle of Kalnaspilis.

In the late 1780s, the Kingdom of Aucuria was hit by a prolonged dry spell that caused several years of increasingly catastrophic crop failures. This exacerbated pre-existing frustrations with poor living conditions, high tax burdens upon non-nobles, rising costs, and fiscal mismanagement by the monarchy, and on January 6, 1790, these tensions broke out into a bread riot in the capital city of Kalnaspilis. While order was restored in Kalnaspilis a few days later, unrest rapidly spread across the country, and by February a body known as the Aucurian Revolutionary Congress, inspired by Enlightenment ideas, declared the abolition of the Aucurian monarchy and the formation of a republican government in Aucuria. The ensuing conflict between monarchist and republican forces is known as the Aucurian Revolution.

Operating out of the city of Katniava for much of the war, the Aucurian Revolutionary Congress- led by lawyer and writer Bendiktas Klimantis- published the Declaration of the Rights of the People, wrote a constitution to be implemented after the conclusion of the war, and abolished the privileges accorded to the nobility by the royal regime. Republican forces, while lacking the training of their monarchist counterparts, where led to several victories under commanders such as Juozapas Kairys, Aleksandras Kamaiška, Kazimieras Treinys, Rudolfas Každys, and Lysandras Tīruma. The deposed monarchy of Atlia, an independent monarchy until 1773, also launched a rebellion against the Aucurian monarchy. Republican forces captured Kalnaspilis in February of 1792, and captured King Kristijonas shortly thereafter, forcing him to formally abdicate the throne. Roughly a month later, republican forces ended the rebellion in Atlia, ending the conflict. Klimantis would go on to become Aucuria's first president; Kairys would become the second.

The nascent republican regime extended equal rights to all Aucurian males regardless of social caste or property ownership shortly thereafter, and created a series of democratically-elected offices across the majority of the country, including an elected presidency and legislature. However, equal rights were formally denied to Atlians, who were treated as second-class citizens; while most of the country was organized into provinces with democratically-elected governors and legislatures, Atlia was classified as a "territory"; its leaders were appointed by Aucuria's national legislature, the Saeimas, without any input from the Atlians themselves.

The Battle of Qayalik Peak was a humiliating defeat for the Aucurian army.

This treatment provoked resentment in Atlia, which, following an 1856 clash between an Atlian mob and Aucurian soldiers in the city of Şehiray, broke out into the Atlian Rebellion. This rebellion was ultimately spearheaded by a group known as the Atlian National Movement, formed from the consolidation of several smaller separatist groups and formally led by Nasrilâh Kartal, and obtained the formal backing of the pretender to the Atlian throne, Şahin Tilkis, and his brother Hüseyin. This rebellion spread rapidly, and within a few months the Atlian National Movement had effectively seized control of Atlia and some regions of Aucuria proper.

While Aucurian armies under Žygimantas Ramanauskas, Leopoldas Edgarautis, Antanas Petkevičius, and Boleslovas Nikaitis had substantial advantages in equipment and training over the Atlian rebels, and the Aucurian navy had launched a blockade of Atlia for the duration of the rebellion, Atlian forces under Kartal, Hüseyin Tilkis, and Direnç Fehimoğlu successfully used Atlian support for the rebellion to enlist civilians in sabotage and intelligence-gathering, and took advantage of Aucurian unfamiliarity with Atlian terrain to lure Aucurian forces into traps. The most infamous battle of the war, the Battle of Qayalik Peak, saw an Aucurian army under Nikaitis near-destroyed by an Atlian army under Tilkis after they were goaded into attacking the Atlians in highly-unfavorable terrain.

Many Aucurians had expected the war to be won quickly and easily, and as a result the inability of the Aucurian army to bring the war to a quick end, and higher-than-expected casualty counts, resulted in increasing public disquiet. In response to this, leading Aucurian generals- including Ramanauskas and Edgarautis- began to publicly accuse the administration of President Eduardas Songaila of betraying the war effort by starving the army of funding, interfering in its operations, and colluding with anti-war and pro-Atlian elements in Aucuria; these allegations continued to be made under Songaila's successor Rudolfas Česnauskis. Meanwhile, Ramanauskas, Edgarautis, and Petkevičius were able to successfully get themselves portrayed as war heroes, struggling both against the enemy and an apathetic or malicious civilian government. The rebellion ended in 1861 with an Aucurian victory, following the brutal capture of Şehiray by Aucurian forces; however, faith in the civilian government continued to plummet, and credit for the victory was accorded primarily to Ramanauskas and his fellow generals.

Public faith in the Aucurian government continued to slip over the following eleven years. The economy began to stagnate in the mid-1860s; additionally, the prices of goods consistently rose at a higher rate than wages during this period, further fostering economic uncertainty. Agitation by the labor movement and by early anarchist groups, culminating in the 1869 assassination of President Miervaldis Vasiliauskas by anarchist Kazimieras Paleckis, sparked widespread public fears about left-wing political radicalism and once again shook public faith in the ability of the government to maintain public security.

On top of these economic and security concerns, several major Aucurian politicians during this period became embroiled in corruption scandals that further crippled public faith in the government. Speaker Kestutis Mežlaukas was consistently accused of corrupt dealings during his tenure, and was voted out of office in 1864 after being implicated in a scheme to bribe several opposition politicians into supporting a bill he had tabled. Shortly afterwards, in 1866, seventeen members of the Saeimas and the governor of Alytia were implicated in a scheme to divert the tax revenues from alcohol distillation into their own pockets, but were found not guilty amidst allegations they had bribed the judges. In late 1871, several cabinet officials were accused of skimming tax revenues for personal gain; as the scandal expanded, both President Nikolajus Grybauskas and former Speaker Joačimas Jurgevičius were implicated in the scheme. By April 1872, when a general election was slated to be held, public faith in the government was effectively non-existent, and the time was ripe for those hoping to take advantage of the crisis.

Rise of the Grey Regime

Main articles: Grey Putsch and Grey Regime

In spite of the growing rift between the Aucurian military and civilian government, the majority of the military leadership that had been in place during the Atlian Rebellion maintained their positions within the country's military- excluding Nikaitis, who had been ignominiously sacked after Qayalik Peak and replaced by Mykolas Surokauskas. This was presented by the generals as proof of their patriotism and devotion; they would continue to serve in the military even as they clashed politically with the government. On top of this, the fame and popularity won by Ramanauskas, Edgarautis, and others in the wake of the rebellion made civilian leaders unwilling to sack them for fear of popular backlash- even as speculations of disloyalty mounted.

The personal writings of Ramanauskas and his associates suggest that he initially believed the military-government relationship could be smoothed out after the Populist Party of Songaila and Česnauskis had been replaced by the Conservative Party, which swept to power in 1862. In June 1862, less than a month after his inauguration, President Vasiliauskas- a Conservative- awarded Ramanauskas the rank of marshal, and many contemporary sources took this as a sign that the conflict had been resolved. In private, however, both men held deep antipathy towards the other; Vasilauskas regarded Ramanauskas as insubordinate, while Ramanauskas considered Vasiliauskas and other civilian politicians to be "weak, decadent, self-serving, immoral creatures... without a shred of respect for diligence, duty, and order". This sentiment was further reinforced by the litany of scandals that dominated the 1860s, both for Ramanauskas personally and for many ranking officers within the Aucurian Armed Forces.

Žygimantas Ramanauskas was the de facto leader of the Grey Putsch.

During the later half of the decade, Ramanauskas began to secretly reach out to select allies in the military- including Edgarautis and Petkevičius- to float the idea of a military coup d'état, receiving generally favorable responses. Preparations for a military coup do not appear to have begun in earnest, however, until September 1871, when Conservative leadership in the Saeimas agreed to slash military funding by 20% in order to win votes from the Populist opposition. At this point, Ramanauskas obtained the support of several other generals, including Surokauskas, Arkādijus Iglaukas, and Teoderikas Andraitys, and the admirals Vygantas Trikūnas and Samuelis Kalikauskas.

The coup d'état- which became popularly known as the Grey Putsch- was launched on April 1, 1872, the slated date for that year's general elections. The forces under Ramanauskas's command seized control of Kalnaspilis, while forces from other generals who had thrown their support behind control seized control of Laižuotas, Katniava, Vištytopolė, Žašales, and Şehiray. President Grybauskas, Speaker Nikiforas Črušiovas, and several other leading politicians and officials were captured and arrested. After seizing control, the putschists claimed that they had been tipped off about a plot to bribe polling officials into falsifying votes and thereby rigging the election, and announced that they would be temporarily "suspending the normal method of governance... until the integrity of the democratic process can be guaranteed". The Saeimas was dissolved, the judiciary replaced with courts-martial, and Ramanauskas was declared acting president.

In the wake of nearly a decade worth of scandal, the allegations made by the putschists were widely seen as credible, though historians have not found any evidence that such a plot existed. Nevertheless, most Aucurians appear to have believed that such a plot existed, and with public faith in the government effectively non-existent, there was little early resistance to the Grey Putsch. The subsequent purges, trials, and convictions of large numbers of politicians, bureaucrats, and judges on corruption charges- both those who were legitimately corrupt and those who the new regime considered a potential threat- also garnered widespread public approval; an article in the newspaper Žinia Respublikos declared that "Marshal Ramanauskas... is once again restoring good order to Aucurian governance, ridding us of those corrupt men who betrayed the public trust for their own gain".

Seeking to legitimize his authority, Ramanauskas announced in late May that a general election for the presidency and the Saeimas would be held on July 1, 1872. Ramanauskas and his allies established a party known as the Democratic-Republican Party to compete in the elections, while roundly disqualifying most other parties and candidates on typically-spurious corruption allegations. As a result, the Democratic-Republican Party ran effectively unopposed; the subsequent Saeimas consisted near-solely of Democratic-Republicans, excluding a handful of seats held by independents who had been vetted and approved by the regime, and Ramanauskas was "elected" President with roughly 98% of the vote. The Saeimas, in turn, proposed a series of laws known as the Extraordinary Powers Acts, which suspended the Constitution and the Declaration of the Rights of the People, granted near-unlimited powers to the president, and effectively crippled the Saeimas and the judiciary.

Ramanauskas's ally Antanas Petkevičius chose to establish a party paramilitary for the Democratic-Republican Party, known formally as the Aucurian Defense League, in 1874; Petkevičius believed that the paramilitary would "help instill order and good values in the Aucurian people, especially our youth", and received Ramanauskas's formal support in launching it. In popular parlance, members of the Aucurian Defense League became known as "Greyshirts" because of their grey uniforms, which distinguished them from members of the Aucurian Armed Forces, who wore brown uniforms and thus became known as "Brownshirts".

Ramanauskas died on July 7, 1895 and was succeeded as President by Kajus Lukauskis, a former bureaucrat who joined the Democratic-Republican Party in the early 1880s. Lukauskis's tenure was comparatively short, lasting only until 1897, but he was nevertheless able to substantially increase the stature of the party organization during this period, turning it from a mere puppet of the military into an institution capable of vying for power within the Grey Regime. This, somewhat inadvertently, resulted in increased power and prominence for the Greyshirts, though at this point they remained firmly under the control of the Democratic-Republic Party.

1916 Revolution

Main article: Aucurian Revolution of 1916

In 1897, after Lukauskis's comparatively brief tenure, General Izoakas Kačinskas became President of Aucuria. Though a member of the army, Kačinskas expanded the powers of the Democratic-Republican Party in an attempt to counteract the growing influence of the labor movement, clandestine dissident groups, and a resurgent Atlian separatist movement. Corruption also expanded dramatically during Kačinskas's tenure, with Kačinskas himself accused of skimming government funds by post-Velvet Revolution historians. Much of this corruption manifested in the civilian government, with the bribery of officials and the misuse of state funds; however, it also manifested in the military, with the purchasing of ranks as the most common form, particularly in the upper echelons of the army.

Kačinskas was replaced as President in 1912 by General Metjūs Urbonavičius, who had risen both through the army and to presidency, in large part, due to bribery and political connections. Similarly, the cabinet and military leadership chosen by Urbonavičius consisted largely of unqualified positions who had won their positions through flattery, bribery, or family relations rather than through anything resembling competence. This left the government unable to effectively deal with the issues facing Aucuria, such as growing discontent with working conditions and wages and the concurrent growth of the Aucurian labor movement, and as a result the situation slowly spiraled out of Urbonavičius's control.

A left-wing militia in Laižuotas during the Workers' Revolution.

Urbonavičius's botched attempts to suppress the labor movement eventually resulted in the Aucurian Revolution of 1916, sometimes known as the "Workers' Revolution" to distinguish it from the Aucurian Revolution of 1790. Initial support for the revolution was concentrated primarily in a handful of urban centers, and many analysts agree the Grey Regime could have theoretically suppressed the insurrection at this point; however, the fact that the leadership of the Aucurian army was dominated by individuals promoted for reasons other than competence meant it was unable to mount an effective response, and revolutionaries were successfully able to seize substantial swathes of countryside, facing only feeble government resistance. Bolstered by this collapse in central authority, Atlian separatists simultaneously attempted, once again, to reestablish an independent Atlian state.

By 1917, the Aucurian and Atlian revolutions had coalesced under the leadership of Ažuolas Tamauskas and Abdülreşîd Sokullu, respectively, and Urbonavičius was being roundly blamed for the Grey Regime's inability to contain and suppress the revolutionaries. With army leadership similarly humiliated by its failures, Urbonavičius was instead replaced by a leading official in the Democratic-Republican Party by the name of Pijaus Kalnietis. Shortly after taking office, Kalnietis launched a massive purge of the officer corps of the Aucurian Armed Forces, in order to remove individuals who had earned their positions through bribery or nepotism rather than skill. While this removed several incompetent individuals from the officer corps in the long term, it further weakened the ability of the army to fight effective in the short term, and as a result Kalnietis was forced to dramatically expand the Greyshirts, both in size and power, as compensation.

The Greyshirts proved significantly more capable of handling the insurrection than the Brownshirts, and by 1919 the rebellion had been crushed, with both Tamauskas and Sokullu summarily executed by Greyshirts. In 1920, Kalnietis formed the National Confederation of Labor Unions and extended suffrage to women, likely in an attempt to weaken the appeal of any surviving dissident groups, though the Confederation of Labor Unions was strictly monitored and controlled by the regime and suffrage was effectively pointless due to the nonexistence of competitive elections under the Grey Regime. The most important result of the revolution, however, was the massive expansion of the Greyshirts, which gave them an independent power base and would enable them to operate as a major faction within the Grey Regime in subsequent decades.

"Wolves and Gryphons"

Main article: Factionalism within the Grey Regime

Under Kalnietis

After the suppression of the 1916 revolution, many leading figures in the Grey Regime attempted to operate in much the same way that they had before the revolution's start. While the Kalnietis regime did make some token concessions such as the nominal extension of suffrage, it too attempted to continue on without making any substantial changes to its practices or ideology. Some actions were undertaken by the regime to clamp down on corruption, but these efforts were near-solely focused on corruption at very low levels, and it remained rampant within the upper echelons of government. Vytautas Petraitis, a post-Velvet Revolution historian, wrote that "the Kalnietis regime's 'anti-corruption initiatives' consisted mostly of a few low-level bureaucrats or police officers being jailed by men who were skimming tax revenues for personal gain".

Nevertheless, some individuals in positions of power did argue that these attempts to continue with politics as usual posed a threat to the regime's stability, and that some change of policy had to be made in the near future to rectify the problems facing Aucuria. The first of these factions, taking heavy inspiration from the speeches and writings of the early Grey Regime, argued that the regime had only ever been conceived of as a temporary measure to purge corrupt and dangerous elements from Aucurian society; once these elements had been adequately dealt with, they maintained, a supervised return to democracy could take place. This line of thinking gained widespread support within the Aucurian Armed Forces, whose officer corps was now largely composed of younger men who- before the 1916 revolution and subsequent purge of the army officer corps- had been passed over for promotion in favor of less competent but better-connected individuals. As several early members of the faction lived or operated in Kalnaspilis, adherents to this line of thought became known as "Wolves" in reference to a myth detailing the city's founding.

The second camp, inspired by proto-fascist lines of thought, stood in direct opposition to the Wolves. Members of this faction regarded democracy as inherently unstable and corrupt, and maintained not only that the Grey Regime ought to remain in power perpetually, but that it ought to be further strengthened in order to permanently suppress opposition movements and guarantee stability within the country. As with many other proto-fascist and fascist movements, this faction openly espoused totalitarianism, ultranationalism, militarism, and protectionism, envisioning a state based around the military and the Democratic-Republican Party, unified under a single totalitarian leader. This movement gained many supporters in the Greyshirts and, to a lesser extent, the Democratic-Republican Party. Adherents of this faction dubbed themselves "Gryphons", in reference to its status as Aucuria's national animal.

A Democratic-Republican rally near Kalnaspilis in 1934.

Most leading members of the Kalnietis administration, however, bore few ties to either the Wolves or the Gryphons, and- identifying the ideological conflict as a potential threat to the regime's stability- attempted to paper over the dispute, suppressing discussions of the dispute within the media and in governmental institutions such as the Saeimas. Kalnietis himself attempted to place individuals with few ties to either faction in positions of power, in hopes of gradually marginalizing both factions; he had Sergejus Arājys, a bureaucrat with a largely apolitical career, installed as Speaker of the Saeimas in 1922, and staffed his cabinets with technocrats and bureaucrats who had few ties to either faction. After Arājys left politics in 1928, he was replaced by Vykintas Helmanis; while Helmanis was a leading Greyshirt, he had previously served as a Brownshirt and had ties to both factions, and was thus broadly accepted by both sides as a compromise candidate.

These efforts to find compromise candidates were usually supported by both the Wolves and Gryphons, who recognized that Kalnietis's appointments of neutral figures to government positions prevented the rival faction from taking those positions instead. Kalnietis additionally presented himself as a compromise candidate who could be trusted to respect both factions, allowing him to fend off internal challenges to his power; this allowed him to retain power for longer than any Aucurian president since Žygimantas Ramanauskas himself. However, these efforts did not marginalize the factions as Kalnietis had hoped; while the Kalnietis regime periodically contemplated taking more drastic action to this end, the close ties between the Wolves with the Brownshirts and the Gryphons with the Greyshirts provoked fears that any drastic action would result in a military coup or civil war, and the Kalnietis administration continued to take only piecemeal actions aimed at slowly marginalizing both factions instead.

Pijaus Kalnietis attempted to suppress the Wolf-Gryphon conflict.

In spite of Kalnietis's attempts to marginalize or suppress the dispute, however, it continued to fester and both the Wolves and Gryphons continued to grow in strength, and the Kalnietis administration increasingly facing political pressure from both factions and their supporters. Due to the efforts of the Gryphons, the Grey Regime increasingly adopted certain fascistic methods of maintaining popular support for the government, including the use of political rallies modeled after those used by foreign fascist movements; the Wolves, meanwhile, stifled an attempt by the Kalnietis regime to alter the structure of the Aucurian cabinet and government, forcing them to leave intact the existing structures of government, which remained modeled in some aspects on the systems of pre-Grey Putsch Aucuria.

Kalnietis's attempts to find compromise candidates to hold major positions also began to lose the support of both factions as the dispute continued to fester, and became increasingly acrimonious. When Speaker Helmanis left power in 1938 after suffering a pair of heart attacks, the Wolves refused to support Kalnietis's proposed compromise candidate, bureaucrat Valdemaras Cedrikaitys, and instead successfully installed their own candidate, Algimantas Steponavičius, as Speaker of the Saeimas. This provoked a major breakdown in relations between the Wolves and Gryphons, with reports of scuffles between Greyshirts and Brownshirts arising in some parts of the country, and a crisis was only narrowly averted. As Helmanis had also been Kalnietis's designated successor, his exit from Aucurian politics posed another serious problem for Kalnietis; however, Kalnietis refused to designate a replacement for Helmanis, for fear that this might destabilize the tenuous peace between the Wolves and the Gryphons. Instead, he opted to double down on his efforts to marginalize both factions, privately vowing to retain power until both groups had been marginalized to the point where they no longer posed a threat to the regime's stability.

In 1942, however, Kalnietis's wife Zuzanna Kalnietė discovered that he had been keeping a mistress without her knowledge, and subsequently assassinated him on June 7, 1942 by stabbing him repeatedly with a letter opener. Kalnietis's plans to marginalize the Wolves and the Gryphons were brought to an abrupt end with his death, and, with no clear successor, both factions immediately began vying to install one of their own as his replacement. In this effort, the Wolves proved to be the successful faction, and on June 12, 1942, Feliksas Lupeikis- a Brownshirt and a member of the Wolves- was named President of Aucuria.

Lupeikis period

Feliksas Lupeikis, President after Kalnietis's death.

Kalvaitis period

Aleirikas Kalvaitis authorized Lupeikis's assassination.

Revolution

Initial protests

Katniavans reading flyers distributed by protesters.

Protesters marching in Kalnaspilis on December 22.

Protests spread

Demonstrators marching in the town of Rietavas.

Protesters in Kalnaspilis next to a toppled statue of Žygimantas Ramanauskas.

General strike and escalation

Protesters and a photographer in Kalnaspilis on December 26.

Striking dockworkers in Laižuotas on December 27.

Violence in Atlia

Atlian protesters carry a wounded individual to safety.

File:Istanbul Pogrom 1955.jpg

Rioters sacking the Kızılay neighborhood of Şehiray.

Standoff

A protester addresses a crowd in Kalnaspilis on January 2.

A streetbus burning in Şehiray on January 3.

January 6th events

Greyshirts marching through Kalnaspilis on January 6.

The corpses of demonstrators in Katniava after the crackdown.

Military coup

Brownshirt tanks advancing through Kalnaspilis.

The headquarters of the Democratic-Republican Party, damaged by tank fire.

Final days

Protesters armed with weapons from a captured Greyshirt armory.

Aftermath

A funeral service held in Kalnaspilis for dead protesters.

Interim governments

Main articles: Provisional Government of Aucuria (1952) and Atlian State (1951-1952)

Maksymas Užugiris and Mustafa Alimoğlu were leaders of the Aucurian and Atlian interim governments, respectively.

Kelbecir negotiations

Main article: Kelbecir Agreement

Grey Trials

Main article: Grey Trials

Legacy

File:Monumento a la Libertad, Riga, Letonia, 2012-08-07, DD 10.JPG

The Monument to the Republic commemorates the Velvet Revolution.